


Delirium

by markofthemoros



Category: Original Work
Genre: Background/mentioned death of a loved one, Day 3, Delirium, Envenoming, Gen, Whumptober 2019, Wilderness whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-26 16:55:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20933582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/markofthemoros/pseuds/markofthemoros
Summary: Whumptober 2019, Day 3: DeliriumFor the amount of time Talion Hastings spends roaming away from the society, he should know better when it comes to watching his step. A little mishap leaves the kid waning, losing it the more the pesky venom wrecks his system.





	Delirium

**Author's Note:**

> This Whumptober, I'll only be posting a few works, sadly. This time, the prompts really left me rather cold.  
Most will feature original characters, too. My own and Sinikka von Wolperting's - because I just LOVE whumping Talion to bits lately and I hope you guys'll enjoy meeting him, too.

He laughed so giddily it brought water to his eyes. That, or humid air, whisking against his face in hot gusts. Screaming out in excitement, Talion spread his arms wide as he urged his legs to keep up. Letting the gravity to guide them, Talion ran down the slope, his heart thrumming wildly with adrenaline. The secondary holler of excitement tingled the back of his mind almost pleasurably.

"Huh?!" Talion cackled out as dark smoke slithered over his shoulders; running down his arms, Pulse formed small flaps like wings underneath them. 

"Haha! Holy shit, Pulse, can you do that?!" Talion tossed his head around in mid-step when his feet seemed to lift off the ground on every few pounds.

'Watch your step, kid!' Despite the words, the entity was pumped up! Pulse's tails quivered in the gust as he let them spread down Talion's sides.

He was laughing, hollering out his rush when the ground evened and his steps gradually slowed down to jogs. Turning to look up the long slope, Talion hobbled backwards a few paces, still chuckling. 

"That was fun!"

'Faster next time, Talion!'

"You mind, Pulse?!" Talion laughed, still energetic. "I can't move my legs any faster."

'Then let me do it. I can!'

"Uh, yeah, no. You always overdo it."

Pulse's voice grew more grave. 'It's really none of your decision, you know.'

"Oh, c'mon Pulse! Don't be that way! We're havin' a good tiii-ii-iiii-!"

He flailed his arms instinctively to regain balance as his foot suddenly sank. Managing to keep himself mostly upright at least, most of his weight sagged on his left. Drawing a couple deep breaths to compose himself, he turned to inspect his trapped right leg.

A small cavern in the ground. Hairs on his back stood up and he gulped as it briefly crossed his mind that he could have stomped an underground beehive. 

'That's the way, kid.' Pulse snorted in his head.

"Shut up." Shifting to a better angle, Talion rolled his foot around testingly. The foot felt a little sore but nothing seemed to be too out of order. Huffing out, he took a firm footing and began to stand.

Rapid, powerful sting sent a jolt up his spine. Yelping out, Talion almost lost his balance again as his body careened away. The pain was quick to begin to ebb away though; holding his leg still eased it out. Talion released a deep breath. That was just a scrape.

'Huhuhu…'

Blinking, Talion's brows furrowed.

"What's funny?"

Pulse's dark tendrils slid down his back. In the being's own way, that was like a pat on the shoulder. His voice lacked the compassion, though, as Pulse chuckled:

'Oh, Talion… You clumsy idiot!'

Scampering up, Talion huffed, a bit offended. It wasn't  _ that _ bad! Expecting more taunting, though, Pulse's sudden silence seemed...asurient. It was too quiet.

"Pulse?" There was only an amused hum. "Pfft. Fine. Be that wa- uh?" Warm, pulsating sensation was beginning to gnaw at his ankle where he had scraped it. Dammit, was it bleeding? Scoffing, Talion sat back down and peeled his sleeve up.

"...Oh shit."

The skin under the dual punctures was reddened; swelling was setting in, sickly white spreading around the neat dips in his pale skin. Talion’s mouth ran dry, his eyes widening as he did the math.

“Aw crap…!”

He pulled the knee down, looking around like simply hiding it and pretending not to see it would make it go away. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuuuuck!”

‘Relax, kid. It’ll only spread faster.’ Pulse didn’t sound particularly worried, though. If anything, the entity seemed indifferent yet mildly curious.

“Not helping.” Pain was starting to emanate in his entire foot. Talion knew he shouldn’t move it. Quickly he tugged off his shirt and tied it around his leg the best he could. It wouldn’t be near enough to prevent it from spreading. But it was better than nothing; he needed to get out of here. “You didn’t happen to see what kind of snake it was, did you?”

‘You know that’s not how it works.’

“‘Course.” Talion rolled his eyes, then sprinted in the direction he knew the town to be at. “Just saying, I might need medicine for that, Pulse. I have no idea what it was but it shouldn’t irate that fast if it was benign.” Just, they had wandered quite some ways from the town. They had been camping at the outskirts for nearly three weeks, but Talion had headed deeper into the woods when he had felt Pulse growing more unpredictable, bearing in mind only a vague idea of the habitation’s general direction. As far as he knew, the town could be hours away. He had been wandering around for a couple days now.

Gulping, Talion scaled a small slope. The leg stung on every hurried step, but he tried to push that out of his mind. Still, the increasing pain was hard to put aside. Focusing on his steps, Talion counted the steps, a way to distract himself as his ankle slowly started to scream with exertion.

"Ugh! Friggin' ow, ow, ow!"

'Quit your whining, Talion. It ain't helping ya.'

"Well neither are you, Pulse!" Talion shouted at the tree he leaned on for support when a jolt of pain stung his ankle.

It was like a caress of his mind. The entity only chuckled lowly; Talion could feel it settling lower in his back, calming down a little. Almost like Pulse was a spectator sitting down to watch the game. 'Tell yourself whatever you want, kid. I can feel it spreading.'

"I know!" He could too, the pain was climbing higher. Huffing, Talion pushed himself off the tree and broke into a jog. He was on the clock, and on an endurance run of an unknown distance. 

He kept his pace up for almost two miles. A screeching headache was starting to grind behind his left eye. Grunting, Talion tried his best to ignore it; focusing on breathing, on keeping his footing, he forced his legs to work. Underneath, support, extend, again. Underneath, support, extend, again. Muttering that mantra to himself under his light panting -partially to distract himself from Pulse's mockery, chiding him on every stumble- he scaled another hill. 

On top of it, he halted suddenly, skidding for a few steps before his tiring legs found footing again.

The overlook wasn't much but it was enough. The entire southern slope had been flattened, offering him a good view over the land.

Devastatingly so. Talion's heart sunk at the distant, light blue and gray outlines of the town. “Aw shit…” Had he really wandered that far? Yes, he had. In fear of accidentally stumbling into anyone when Pulse could be more dangerous, he had headed deep into the woods. He only now realized how deep exactly. “What a timing…”

He fisted a tuft of his hair as he pressed the heel of his palm onto his temple when a near blinding, slicing ache threatened to split his skull in half. “Ah-angh..!” ‘Pu-Pulse, s-stop it…!’

‘I ain’t doin’ anything, kid.’ Except smirking, Talion could  _ feel _ it.

His eyes like saucers, he turned to look over his shoulder. “Can it..really affect this fast?!”

He got no reply, though. In the face of his teeth gritting to ride out another peak, yeah, it would have been pointless. Forcing himself to move, Talion’s step now heavier, he descended back to the treeline and carried on.

* * *

Was he going in the right direction? God, please, let him be going in the right direction! Talion kecked, slamming his hand over his mouth against the taste of bile when his vision suddenly melted and slid to the side. His free hand found the tree trunk on sheer dumb luck, and he yanked himself to slump against that rather than the ground. Shivering, Talion fought the nausea. He shook his head around, still clutching his mouth when the churning in his stomach got more volatile. Pulse’s mocking whispers and amused chuckles weren’t helping, either! He tried to push them aside, but it wasn’t that easy when Pulse would only take his humor when he wasn’t being careful.

He doubled over, a long whimper rising muffled, when a savage cramp twisted his stomach. Falling to his knees in the undergrowth, Talion released his mouth to pant heavily. He couldn’t 

hold it back anymore when another one hit, and he retched, hacking so hard his shoulders quivered. The taste of acid and bitterness and earth made his eyes water, and he wiped his eyes into his muddy sleeve.

‘Get up, Talion!’

“Uh’m tryin’...!”

His vision swam. Shapes, shadows, muddled colors. Everything was blurry and dancing, his eyes were rolling around. Moaning, he rested his weight on the tree to get back on his feet. They wobbled a little before he found firmer standing. His limbs tingled mercilessly with coming numbness; Talion let out a dry sob. Forcing his shaky legs to move, he half-jogged, half-staggered on, desperately wishing to see a glimpse of the edge of the forest already, or hear the rumbling of a road, anything to indicate habitation. 

Nothing.

Heaving out a half-sob, he wrapped an arm around his tumbling stomach, and pressed on.

* * *

He barely recognized the still warm, sticky trickle running down his chin. Talion’s jaw hung open, his eyes moving around sluggishly behind drooping eyelids. The leaves stuck to his cheek, fingers clawing at the damp ground stubbornly, as means to hold onto movement.

Pulse’s shouts in his head came distant. Talion heard him, but through thickening fog that was wrapping his mind into its soft cocoon of oblivion.

He tried to move, to pull his legs back under himself, to get up. His limbs only twitched in sad effort. Numbness had lost almost all feeling from his body; only the seeping cold of the approaching nightfall pushed through into his consciousness anymore. Talion paid it little heed. He paid little heed to anything anymore as his thoughts formulated slowly, centring around the questions he hadn’t been answered long ago, the whys and the hows.

‘...Mom?’ There was a gentle brush over his lax cheek.

‘Pull yourself together, kid!’

‘I, I thought you were dead…’ A small smile tugged at the edges of his lips. Talion nuzzled the ground weakly; his facial muscles twitched upward.

‘Uh-m, I’m...sorry. Mah-am, I’m, I’m so...so-sorry…’ 

She was smiling. She was smiling at him. Was that absolvement? Does his mother forgive him? 

Talion let out a soft sob. It, it wasn’t so bad then. She was here, his mother would take care of him now.

His panting breaths came out in shuddering gasps that didn’t fill his lungs. The distant thunder that was his erratic heartbeat remained vague, though, as Talion rested his head on his mother’s lap and treasured her soothing touch on his forehead.

Pulse’s fury ebbed away as Talion’s mind slowly eased out into darkness with his mother’s caresses.


End file.
